It will be a great day when Psion finally figures out how to let the world know about its palmtop.
I've been using the Psion Series 5mx (and previously the 5) for several years now. It does everything I want in a Palmtop. Can run more "real" apps than the Palm, and does them better than the PocketPC. Why does this great tool go unnoticed?
Just to give a few software examples, it's got a fine word processor, spreadsheet and flat-file database. (A relational database is available aftermarket.) It comes with calendar, contacts, email, web browsing... all the expected items from a "connected organizer" And it does synchronize with many desktop apps.
After the standard software, things get interesting. There's a large and dedicated bunch of people making amazing things for the Psion. I've got Doom (yes, you can get it for CE, too), a PDF viewer , and pretty much anything else you'd ever want. It's a real computer, with real applications for it. And the crowning glory is that the Psion has Perl. There is even a project to put Linux on the Psion, but the built in OS is really quite good.
On to hardware: The best thing about the Psion is its keyboard, a real one. I can even touch type on it. No chiclet keys these, but full-travel good feeling keys. Yes they're close together, yes you have to do a key combination to get slash, but I can type so much faster than I can graffiti, it's worth a few adjustments.
The 5mx is as speedy as I need, 36mHz ARM processor; 16 megs of RAM built in, with a slot for Compact Flash cards. And the screen... well, it's big, and useful, 640x240. The 5mx is brighter than the 5, but they still could learn something about bright screens from Palm. Oh, 16 shades of gray, too, makes viewing images much nicer. Finally, battery life: I get a month out of 2 AA batteries: somewhere between 20 and 35 hours depending on how much I use the backlight.
As far as palmtops go, I've never seen one that does everything I need it to do, and does it the way I expect it to be done, as does the Psion Series 5mx. Psion also makes other palmtops, the more consumer oriented Revo, and the larger, color, Series 7, but I still think the Series 5 is the best of the bunch.
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I've been using the Psion Series 5mx (and previously the 5) for several years now. It does everything I want in a Palmtop. Can run more "real" apps than the Palm, and does them better than the PocketPC. Why does this great tool go unnoticed?
Just to give a few software examples, it's got a fine word processor, spreadsheet and flat-file database. (A relational database is available aftermarket.) It comes with calendar, contacts, email, web browsing ... all the expected items from a "connected organizer" And it does synchronize with many desktop apps.
After the standard software, things get interesting. There's a large and dedicated bunch of people making amazing things for the Psion. I've got Doom (yes, you can get it for CE, too), a PDF viewer , and pretty much anything else you'd ever want. It's a real computer, with real applications for it. And the crowning glory is that the Psion has Perl. There is even a project to put Linux on the Psion, but the built in OS is really quite good.
On to hardware: The best thing about the Psion is its keyboard, a real one. I can even touch type on it. No chiclet keys these, but full-travel good feeling keys. Yes they're close together, yes you have to do a key combination to get slash, but I can type so much faster than I can graffiti, it's worth a few adjustments.
The 5mx is as speedy as I need, 36mHz ARM processor; 16 megs of RAM built in, with a slot for Compact Flash cards. And the screen ... well, it's big, and useful, 640x240. The 5mx is brighter than the 5, but they still could learn something about bright screens from Palm. Oh, 16 shades of gray, too, makes viewing images much nicer. Finally, battery life: I get a month out of 2 AA batteries: somewhere between 20 and 35 hours depending on how much I use the backlight.
As far as palmtops go, I've never seen one that does everything I need it to do, and does it the way I expect it to be done, as does the Psion Series 5mx. Psion also makes other palmtops, the more consumer oriented Revo, and the larger, color, Series 7, but I still think the Series 5 is the best of the bunch.